Measuring Intelligence and Stupidity
So, with the review out of the way, let's talk about something slightly more controversial: measuring intelligence. I've been given a comment that says one of the biggest problems with the anti-test movement is that (standardized) tests are the best things we have, and there's nothing to replace them. Maybe we can figure out what that replacement can be (or we can just go back to a time where we didn't use them), by figuring out what the flaws of these tests are. The most prominent is that measuring intelligence is a fallacy. Measuring someone's intelligence is like measuring a country. Right now I want you to measure Australia. Figure out if Australia is more than Brazil. You cannot do this. Ever. Why? I have given you no specific metrics. Well, that's one of the reasons. Because I could give you all of the metrics, and it would still be hard to figure out which country would be "more", even if you did everything point-for-point. Specific quirks can be seen as good or bad, based only on an outsider's opinion. What is intelligence? One of the dictionary definitions of intelligence is: "capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships facts, meanings, etc." Okay. Let's see if we can measure intelligence, based on those criteria. After that we can tell if one person is objectively more intelligent than another person, and... bar the less intelligent person from their dreams (I'll be getting back to that later). Capacity for Learning Okay, so the standardized tests... kind of do this... I think. They tell you a bunch of things, and if you can remember them... wait, that's memory. You see, a capacity for learning is not what you already know, it's what you're able to learn. So... in a country, this would be like measuring its capacity for development. Okay, one country has a booming agricultural side. Another country is spending most of its budget on learning sciences. Which country is more? On a standardized test, both countries would need both of these in order to be considered of having a high capacity for development. Both of these countries will develop in different ways. The person who is capable of learning many instruments is going to develop differently than the person who is capable of learning advanced mathematics. People rarely learn them both. They both have helped people move onto very happy and successful lives. Who is more intelligent? Who has the higher capacity for learning? Measuring a capacity for learning is like measuring Queensland. Once again, it's too vague to mean anything. I mean, which is more? Queensland or Nebraska? The question literally makes no sense. I mean, figuring out which is more is necessary to figuring out which country is more, right? Reasoning How... does one measure reasoning? I dunno, maybe seeing how many questions a kid asks. For example, in a class, if a kid asks "Why doesn't the Earth spiral into the sun if it's being pulled by its gravity? Or why doesn't the sun pull the moon-or any moon-away from the planets?" Does he have a lower reasoning than the other kids because he can't figure out that on his own, or does he have a higher reasoning because the other kids didn't even think to question that? Do we see if the kid is resistant to being convinced of some kind of lie? The closest we get is "a'' is to ''b, is like y'' is to ''z." This will definitely gauge my ability to figure out if someone is lying to me, what's wrong with my computer when it goes on the fritz, what types of ideologies would or wouldn't work logically. Also, if Turtle is to Tortoise as Dolphin is to Porpoise wouldn't be able to gauge your reasoning if you had no idea what the fuck a porpoise was. The amount of knowledge you have accumulated has nothing to do with your reasoning ability. Understanding A capacity for understanding. Understanding nuclear fusion is different than understanding a sociopolitical climate is different than understanding color theory is different than understanding auto repair. Is someone who can understand auto repair, but can't understand color theory more intelligent than someone who can understand color theory, but can't understand auto repair? Similar forms of mental activity Like creativity, maybe? Creativity isn't on standardized tests because we've already realized that you can't measure creativity. Is Lord of the Rings more creative than Star Wars? Indiana Jones more creative than Back to the Future? Any answer is only opinion. Can we measure intelligence though? Or is it like creativity? I mean, not everyone is Albert Einstein, or Da Vinci or Van Gogh, and not everyone has literal brain damage. Well... what do Van Gogh and Picasso have in common. They were both very creative painters, but beyond that, give me a metric that both of them measure very highly on and we could use that metric and... apply it to Stephen Spielberg, Stephen King, Michelangelo, Bach... this isn't working. Could you create a metric between Marie Curie and Isaac Newton and Nikola Tesla? What do all of these very intelligent people have in common that you can exclude from the people who didn't go as far as them in life? It's becoming clear to me that there are as many types of intelligence in the world as there are people. Let's start with one problem: you'd need to measure intelligence without using knowledge, because knowledge is biased based on the people's personal experiences. Is the person in France less intelligent than the person in Britain just because the question was based on something that the person in Britain was more likely to know? I mean, try it. "The red circle is..." sorry this intelligent person you're talking to is color-blind. Also, the other person doesn't have the concept of a circle. However, the second person can get the concept of circle by being taught. You cannot teach a color-blind person color. By the definition, that would make the second person more intelligent. Despite this having nothing to really do with intelligence. Also, both of these people can be from the same first-world country. We seem to have an obsession with measuring intelligence, despite not being able to come up with a way to do so. I've talked plenty about standardized tests today. But the IQ test is bunk, and the SAT was made by a eugenicist that gets eugenicist answers (because of the knowledge problem stated above, most likely). And as we've seen, stupid is the 21st century ugly. Neither are a good thing to be, but stupid doesn't need to be tolerated by any but the most polite. I mean stupid people break shit. Like those college-educated top scientists that broke the Hubble Space Telescope because they couldn't figure out the rest of the world used the metric system. Intelligent people mocked germ theory. Intelligent people built the Titanic and the Hindenburg, not thinking one might sink and one might explode. A very interesting thing to think about is what the future will laugh at us for. "Ha ha, they were looking for water to find life on other planets." A lot of science is moving from one answer to a less wrong answer, ad infinitum. Intelligent people find new solutions that proves all prior knowledge wrong. They don't know more stuff, they know more possibilities. That sounds a lot like creativity, which we know cannot be measured. We can tell if our surgeon is a good surgeon, if we live. But there's no way to know how universally intelligent he is. What would universal intelligence even be like? The closest person in history is probably Da Vinci, seeing many possibilities in both science and art. If someone is a better artist than Da Vinci, would they be more universally intelligent than him? But for those not so inclined, let's figure out some criteria you stubborn people might use to figure out if someone is "intelligent." 1.) They're not afraid to ask questions. Maybe not to other people, but to the world and reality itself. 2.) They learn from their mistakes. 3.) They can believe all current knowledge is wrong. 4.) They see unique possibilities. 5.) They're determined in their area of expertise. 6.) They seek knowledge or wonder for its own sake 7.) They're not afraid to be as wrong as the world around them. Now all you have to do is figure out a way we can measure the lifelong traits for every person in the world. Also, you have to figure these things out without any knowledge bias that any particular person might not be familiar with. If that's too big, do it for one country. Do it for one city. So... what do we use besides standardized tests? I dunno... grades were working pretty well before Washington decided they were irrelevant. Remember, intelligent people question premises. It's weird that educated people often don't. It's true that the United States comes below the Asian countries in test scores that test even more and have higher demands on kids. But the United States also comes below Finland... the country with only one standardized test in their entire educational career, don't start school until they're seven, and aren't measured at all until 6 years past that. Maybe standardized testing doesn't have to go. What has to go is test culture. What was the original purpose of the standardized tests? To gauge when kids are not doing well in school and help them succeed. Standardized tests are making kids not do well in school and actively preventing them from succeeding. Congratulations you not only fixed what wasn't broken, you've made things worse. Not only that, but these tests are being used incorrectly. Using them now is like trying to build a house by spending all of your time and money on the fanciest tape measure you can get. Without buying hammers, nails, and planks. Even if you need the tape measure, it's a tool to aid the hammers, nails, and planks. If... tests were no-stakes. Schools didn't get closed down, funding didn't get cut, teachers didn't get fired, and students didn't get their diplomas held, what would be the consequence? Would students just not come at all... like they're doing now. Would they not take it seriously at all? How seriously can you take a question about a talking pineapple? Cheating would go down, teachers wouldn't teach the test, kids would get a more well-rounded education. I want you to look at this website. Keep my chart from the other day in mind: www.nationsreportcard.gov/read… It seems that some of the lowest performing states... you have to pass standardized tests to graduate. Most of the highest performing states... you don't have to pass the standardized tests to graduate. As for proposing an alternate means to check which kids learned something and which didn't.... I propose... grades, from A to F. I hear those work pretty well in some other countries. Category:Miscellaneous